Quotes on Originality

If you fall in love with an idea, you won't see the merits of alternative approaches-and will probably miss an opportunity or two. One of life's great pleasures is letting go of a previously cherished idea. Then you're free to look for new ones. What part of your idea are you in love with? What would happen if you kissed it goodbye?

The best way to be original is to be yourself.

That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Well, the way I play, I try not to be a 'repeater pencil', ya dig? Originality's the thing. You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain't really nowhere. Gotta be original.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

Originality is being different from oneself, not others.

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another.

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.

It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus!

Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation.

Caesar was a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself.

This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got.

You've got to be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for?